Persuasive Social Media

1850 Words4 Pages

Social Media: Tweet, Like, Share Audience: Millennial Generation Purpose: To convince my audience that social media can have many negative effects, particularly when used too often. However, my position also acknowledges that there are some positive effects of social media. Think about how much time you spend updating your Facebook status, sending out tweets, or watching YouTube videos each day. Social media is a great way for people to connect with friends, family, and even strangers from all over the globe. In today’s world, anyone can be a creator, sharing and posting content to the Internet on a variety of social media websites and applications. A hot topic for debate these days is whether social media is actually good or bad for us. …show more content…

Most of us can relate to checking our phones the moment we wake up to see what is happening in the world as well as what our friends and family members are up to. It seems harmless, but the fact is that checking social media can actually produce dopamine in the brain, not unlike the effects of overuse of drugs and alcohol. As a result, many people are glued to their social media accounts affecting both their personal and professional lives (Snow, 2012). The fact is that social media networks are actually set up in such a way to make people want to spend more time on the sites. Of course that makes sense for the business owners and stakeholders, but it is dangerous for the users. Mike Elgan, columnist at ComputerWorld, explains how it works. According to Elgan, social media becomes addictive based on two simple psychological concepts. First of all, there is the fear of missing out, or FOMO. The idea is that users believe that everyone is on social media talking and interacting twenty-four hours a day. Not participating might leave one behind! The other concept is based around the notifications. Seeing the red notification bubble next to the application’s icon on your phone lets you know that someone has interacted with you. However, you do not have enough information. Therefore, users are encouraged to click on that notification to find out what it is all about (Eglan, 2015). Social …show more content…

Almost every person in the millennial generation has at least one account on some form of social media, and most have accounts on several platforms. At least one study has been done to observe the effects of what happens when millennials are denied the use of social media. The research was done by a team of professors at Texas Christian University, and the results were not very promising. Just like drug addiction, social media addiction had a negative impact on procrastination, personal relationships, and productivity of users (Bright, Grau, & Kleiser, 2015). Not only is the addictive property a problem, but social media can also cause even more personal problems for

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